Piles are usually massive steel tubing, or concrete or wooden support members and submerged in water. Although the pile may initially be painted or otherwise coated to avoid wear and tear from the elements, the piles inevitably become subject to corrosion, barnacles and/or bacterial attack in the fresh water or the hostile environment of sea water. This is particularly so over the splash zone, near the surface of the water in which the pile is partially submerged, where the pile is alternately wetted and dried by the wave action of surface of the water in which the pile is submerged.
It is comparatively easy to apply a protective shield to a pile before it is placed in the water, however, there are thousands of existing piles already in place, corroding away and in need of a protective shield. Moreover, existing shielding systems make retrofitting existing piles with a shield, extremely difficult and expensive. Thus, there is a need for a somewhat simpler shield, and one that will allow fairly easy replacement or retrofitting, or even re-use after removal inspection.